In a swirl of dark power, Aon appeared in his library. The fire was already roaring, set by the servants when Edu and his empath had arrived. Neither had bothered to sit. They knew they were not welcome. They knew they would not be allowed to be here for long.
Edu turned to face him, his shoulders squaring. Aon folded his hands behind his back and smirked behind his mask. “Yes? I am terribly busy.” He kept the insinuation thick. Let Edu wonder what had already become of Lydia—Aon cared not. Indeed, the more uncomfortable the other king was in his presence, the better.
“You must return the girl.” Edu was never one to belabor a point, and his empath, while she endeavored to soften Edu’s more brutish nature, never quite could curtail it in its entirety.
Aon laughed mildly and let out a tired sigh. The King of Flames was inescapably predictable. And so, he dodged. “Hello, Ylena. How are you?”
Silence.
“Non-conversational? How ironic. We have not spoken since you were given your position and the treaty was signed. But, grudges are as grudges may be. Very well,” Aon shrugged and turned to walk to the head of his table and leaned his arm on the back of it, tracing the carved wood with this clawed gauntlet. It was a reminder that he could do to Lydia whatever he wished, and his wishes were grand and unkind. “Then I will impolitely say, simply, no.”
Edu’s fists clenched at his sides, the leather of his armored gauntlets creaked. As he could not speak—gloriously, and Aon would never regret his decision to render him unable to do so—Ylena was forced to answer for him. “Then you invite war.”
He chuckled. “Oh, my dear old friend, when has that ever frightened me?”
War was so wonderfully entertaining.
It really was the most exultant of games where he might play with soldiers of flesh and blood upon the checkered board and not ivory and ebony. It was much better when the pieces could scream.
And no war had ever been so glorious as this. His “Great War,” they were already dubbing it.
Chains made of smoke and darkness held the hulking mass of flesh and rage pinned to the ground. Edu could have beaten him in a fair fight quite easily. Aon admitted this, he felt no shame in knowing that in a childish, brutish bout of fisticuffs, he would lose.
It was far more remarkable that the idiot had gone into this scenario believing that Aon would ever stoop to such a level as to meet him in hand-to-hand combat. That he might have ever expected Aon to fight fair.
Fair.
There was no such thing.
Fairness was only labeled as such in the absence of such a thing. It was a whining label attached to a series of events by they who found themselves lacking. It was a tenant taught to mortal children to try and instill upon them a sense of morality. That it was wrong to take what was not yours. That it was good to be “fair.”
What a laugh.
He was not to blame that Edu waltzed into his trap, sword raised, shouting invectives at him. He had captured the man’s new favorite lover of the week—a dark-haired girl who had fallen into the House of Fate. Ziza might be her name. He honestly had little interest in such things. She only played into his plans for that she made such wonderful and inescapable bait for the bulbous idiot.
The girl had screamed so wonderfully as he had chained her to the wall and taken sections of her flesh. The wounds had to be bad enough that they would linger for Edu to witness upon arriving to his rescue mission.
When Edu was angry, he was reckless. And it was so terribly easy to anger him.
Not to mention…terribly entertaining.
He had fallen for the bait like a tuna to lure. Unable to resist the cries of Ziza, who was begging to be saved by her love, her King of Flames. And begging Aon for mercy.
“Mercy,” another quaint concept that went right there alongside “fairness.”
Worthless and childish concepts placed on a pedestal by those who wished to shield themselves from their own failure.
Ziza was still screaming, sobbing, begging. But like all things, like every delectable sweet, there was such a thing as too much, and her hollering was becoming irritating.
“He can’t help you,” Aon turned his head to glance at the woman chained to the wall over his shoulder. “So please be quiet, if you will.”
“Monster!” she yanked on the chains. The girl had a tolerance for pain, he had to give her that much. Despite having removed large portions of her muscle and sinew before cauterizing the wounds so she would not slip into the release of death, she fought on.
“Mmhm. Please don’t be so terribly boring in your insults.”
“Leave her out of this, Aon!” Edu yanked on the chains that kept him bound to the floor on his knees. The muscles in his arms and back rippled uselessly. Aon’s black fire had melted much of his armor, and his magic had torn away almost all the rest. The man was a bleeding mess, but Aon knew he was not defeated. Not hardly.
Not yet.
“This is between you and me, gremlin,” Edu snarled up at him from behind his mask. “Let her go. Carve my flesh if you wish, like you do to Qta.”
Aon shrugged dismissively, folding his hands behind his back, clasping his wrist with his other hand idly. He knew his casual demeanor would only needle the big man further. “Qta is none of your concern. He is my prisoner of war. I may do to him as I wish, as I will to both of you. You have nothing with which to bargain, Edu.”
“Then let me stand. Fight me fairly.”
Aon laughed. “No! Why would I ever agree to that? You lost. You came in search of her, and you walked squarely into this situation. What did you honestly think was going to happen?”
“It didn’t matter. I had to come. I had to come for her.”
“Why?” Aon canted his head to the side. “Why throw it all away for her? You know I could kill you now. I wouldn’t shed a tear for it.”
“I love her. A concept you wouldn’t understand.”
No. That was quite true.
That was an emotion he had never felt. It was an emotion that had never been paid to him, nor drawn from his dead heart. It was the only thing, therefore, that he truly desired. The only thing that might be the answer to the gaping hole in his soul.
They called him a monster. A gremlin. A rotted corpse. And sometimes he felt no better than the pile of decayed flesh to which they compared him. He wondered how long it would take for his body to catch up with the rest of him. Certainly, his mind was as decayed as his heart.
“Why would I ever wish for such a thing?” he parried, shrugging off the pain he felt, knowing it didn’t register to the big man. Edu would never believe him capable of more than anything other than spite.
It was so exhausting playing the villain. It was easier just to become one.
“All I ever see,” he continued idly, “is how you idiots throw away your lives, your welfare, your very happiness in the name of such a trite and childish concept as ‘love.’ It’s a fool’s errand. You are willing to sacrifice anything to save dear Ziza the pain of death. Only…so…what…you have someone to talk to? So that you might have a convenient hole to bend over and rut like a beast? What is the point of it all?”
“That you don’t understand speaks that you never shall. I won’t waste my words on you.”
That gave him an idea.
Aon tilted his head to the other side. “Hm. I think we might be able to strike a deal after all, old friend.”
“What?”
“I will trade you. Your release, and hers. Both alive. Her, with all her limbs attached and unharmed.”
Edu was rightfully wary. The man was a child and an idiot, but anyone could see that the cost for such a thing would be a terrible price to pay. “What is the deal, cretin?”
Aon held out his hand and summoned a dagger to his hand. It was etched with a dark magic that even he was uncomfortable to wield. Pain and torture were one thing—permanent harm was a vile crime fitting only for mortals to pay to each other. For all the wounds he might pay to another here, it would wash away, leaving only the mental scarring behind. Only the strong of will survived in Under.
This was another matter entirely.
In his studies, he had found the way to permanently mark the flesh as mortals would.
He reached down with his other hand and tore the mask from Edu’s face. As soon as the metal met the dirt, he looked down into the hazel and angry eyes of a man he recognized. He knew this face. He knew this man on his knees before him. Aon had done this to him before.
Memories flashed through him like a punch to the face. He reeled—and barely stayed on his feet.
Sand. Heat. The sun blazed overhead. Blood, sinking into the grit between Edu’s knees. He heard himself laughing…but he did not know the sound. Images of a place he did not know, and yet he remembered sculpting with his own hands.
A throne. Cruel and looming stood before him.
It was his.
A voice dragged him back to the present. Out of the madness that threatened to drag him back to its warm depths without warning at every turn.
“I know you think I’m ugly, but that’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”
If Edu had one gift in this world, it was the ability to crack jokes in any moment, no matter how dire or serious. Regardless of what was occurring, he was able to find the chance to make light of it all.
Aon swiveled back to look down at the man, and felt the rage boil up within him. Anger and frustration at himself, at his own faltering mind. That, for all his power and his command of the world around him, he could not have what mattered most to him.
His sanity.
A soul to love.
So, he opted that he would take it out on the man who knelt before him, sneering up at him with a haughty look of righteousness. Even on his knees, even beaten, even knowing that whatever was about to happen would be horrifying, he was sneering up at him with all the expression of the victor.
It sealed his fate.
Aon lifted the dagger that glinted dangerously in the light.
“Here is the price you shall pay for your love, Edu, King of Flames. Open your mouth.”
He came back into awareness mid-conversation. That happened to him from time to time. That he seemed to be tracking both his present time and place and lost in his memories all at once. He never missed a beat, something upon which he prided himself greatly. That even in his madness, he might retain his dignity.
“Master Edu will not return to his crypt.”
Aon laughed. “You jest. You know the rules. I have risen, and so, you must sleep. Such is the accord of our peace treaty. Lest the other houses will be forced to rally with me against you.”
“So be it. They are regents only. They pose our house no threat.”
“You think yourself a match for me? How many times have I bested you, Edu? A dozen? That you live is a testament to my magnanimous soul.” Aon placed his clawed hand against his chest dramatically. “You should thank me that you yet breathe, not come to my home with empty threats and childish pouting.”
The creak of leather sounded as Edu clenched his fists again tightly. “Master Edu demands you give him the girl.”
“No. She is in my care. You would have killed her pointlessly. I seek to protect her.”
Edu laughed. One of the few sounds the man could still make. Ylena shared no such humor. She rarely seemed to have any emotions of her own. The price she paid to be bound to her king in such a fashion. “Master Edu wonders when you received a sense of humor.”
“About the time I sliced out your tongue.”
Edu’s laugh turned into a growl, and he pounded his fist into the back of a chair next to him. “Enough. Master Edu will not argue with you any longer. Release the girl into his custody immediately.”
“Again, I repeat myself. Simpler, this time. Are you ready?” Aon paused. “No.” He paused again. “Did you understand me? Good. I will say this in addition, now that that two-letter, single-syllable word has sunk through your thick skull. I will not return her to you, and there is nothing you can do about it. For you would stand against me, your better, the stronger king, along with the regents you look down your nose upon. Five houses would beat the one, Edu. You know it.”
“He will not return to his crypt.”
“You have no choice! To do so is to declare yourself in violation of the treaty. And there will still be war!”
“So be it.”
“You are a child!” Aon snarled, picked up a vase, and hurled it against the wall. It shattered into a hundred-thousand pieces, raining like glinting snowflakes and shards of ice against the floor.
Edu stood there, his fists clenched, and he could feel the glare behind the mask he wore. He could also feel something else—the presence of his servant standing on the other side of his door. Lingering. Afraid.
With his mortal beside him. Lydia, the topic of the argument at hand. He was eager to see her. Eager to play with her, he realized. How he delighted in what little interactions he had with her. He wished to drop Edu through a hole in space straight to the void, and instead spend the evening toying with his new diversion.
“And just bring Lydia in already, Fabian!”
The door opened slowly, and Lydia walked in. She moved hesitantly and slow, her gait unsure and nervous. She was wearing the clothing he laid out for her. Good girl. She glanced around the room in awe, taking in her surroundings, missing his presence entirely, before her eyes settled on Edu.
She froze. Her posture locked, and her shoulders went up to her ears. Her blue eyes widened in panic. This was not the same that she paid to himself—that heady and beautiful mix of curiosity and terror that he had become so drawn to as of late.
Lydia feared Edu differently than she feared him. This was primal. This was true terror.
Fascinating.
He would have to pry deeper into that little revelation.
“He will not hurt you,” he said, cutting through the silence a little more tersely than he intended. He was still furious at Edu. Now, namely, because the man was still here. He was interrupting his game with the mortal girl. “He is in my home now, after all.”
His words were a reminder to the King in Red that any incursion upon his houseguest would warrant a swift and violent—and legal—reaction from him.
Lydia tore her gaze away from Edu and finally sought him out. It took her a solid moment to find him in the darkness. When her eyes settled on him, he raised his leather-gloved hand and beaconed her to come to him. For several reasons. One, he wished to see if she would obey him. Two, he wanted her out of Edu’s direct path, should he try to kill her here in his library. Three, he merely wanted her close.
She hesitated. Her eyes never left him, as she clearly debated the merits of following his command. Was she safer to stay, or to obey? He couldn’t fault her for the question—many of his servants asked themselves the same daily.
He held his hand out, palm up, fingers outstretched. He kept his voice patient and even. She was a mortal girl, a creature unadjusted to their world. He was a figure cut from the cloth of nightmares. That she was not reduced to a sobbing heap upon the floor was more than he could have asked for. “Come, my dear. Please.” He surprised himself with how gentle he sounded.
One foot in front of the other, she made her way around the table towards him. She hesitated some ten feet away and came to a stop. Her fingers were twisting in the fabric of her dress nervously. The poor girl was terrified.
The opportunity to needle her was too good to pass up. “Did you enjoy your bath?”
Oh, the glare he received was one he would treasure for years to come. She shot him such a look of contempt and disbelief, he almost laughed. But he had her cornered. With Edu in the room, with their footing being unsure, and with her utterly at his mercy, she couldn’t very well shout at him for his admission of spying upon her.
“I did, thanks,” she grumbled at him.
He grinned broadly behind his mask. She was a delightful opponent in the game. She conceded to him without giving up an inch of ground. How wonderful!
“Good. I am glad. Thank you for attending me without complaint. It is impressive what a little simple hospitality can do. Isn’t it, Edu?” Aon said, pointedly turning back toward the giant warrior.
Edu growled low in his throat, his hands tightening into fists.
A game came to his mind unbidden, uninvited, but entirely welcome. Let us see how quickly you think on your feet, darling Lydia. Aon ignored the man’s obvious anger and turned back to address her. “Our mutual friend has given me some disturbing news. Edu refuses to return to his century of slumber, as was the agreement to which we both swore an oath so long ago. What do you think of this?”
“You’re asking me?” Lydia laughed once, clearly astonished and confused. “I don’t even get what’s happening here.”
“Then allow me to explain.” He did so much love to play the role of tutor. It was rare that he had the opportunity. Most were too afraid to learn, or not worthy of his time. But now, he was on stage in front of his oldest enemy and his newest toy. The chance to expound was one to be relished. “I will keep this brief, so excuse me for omitting details I will supply to you in short order when we are alone.”
The look she gave him was incredulous. As if she doubted that he could keep his words short. Already, she was beginning to discern his personality. How quickly you learn. Good.
The warlock began his explanation with a wide gesture of his clawed hand. “Long ago, there was a great and bloody war. Edu and I destroyed much of this world in our bids for dominance. When all was said and done, we had all paid a terrible price. It was decided that neither of us could remain in this world at the same time as the other if we were not to risk falling into the turmoil once more. We arranged that we would trade places. He would reign as king of Under, and then I, in exchange, for a century each.”
Aon paused. Lydia nodded, signaling that she was following along. Her eyes darted across the table in thought as she furrowed her brow, as if trying to piece it all together. She had questions, he was certain. All in due time. I will have you pay for answers in flesh, beautiful girl.
The image of her splayed out upon his library table, lashed to the legs, naked, flashed before his eyes. Crying out for mercy from the pain he brought her. Begging for release of the pleasure that crested in her. Pleading for him.
He felt his desire crest and leaned into the chair to hide what must be a visible response. He shook himself out of his memory and continued his explanation seamlessly.
“Edu has now decided that he will break this treaty. He will not return to his crypt. He intends to stay awake, to challenge me!” In a sudden burst of rage, Aon slammed his fist into the back of a nearby chair, and the sudden action made Lydia jump. “What say you to this?” He asked, his voice calm once more.
“Are you seriously asking my opinion?”
What a sardonic sense of incredulity she had. How charming! “Clearly, yes.”
Lydia took a moment to think it over before responding. “I guess I’d ask why.”
“Ah! Yes. Tell her why, Ylena!” Aon exclaimed and threw his hands up in frustration.
“Master Edu wishes to remain awake until the mystery of your expulsion from the Pool of the Ancients is explained, or until he is allowed to take your life to prevent Aon from misusing your secrets.”
“I don’t have any secrets, and I’m not going to just walk over there and let you snap my neck,” Lydia shot back.
“It is not your decision to make,” Ylena responded. “If you are a tool of some unknown power, it will spell our ruin to have you at Aon’s disposal. Better you die now than be wielded later for his gain. It is best if you accept your fate before the true King of Under.”
Lydia snorted. “No. Fuck, no.”
Good girl. Yes. Fight. Struggle. This is the girl that ran from the King of Flames. This is the woman who tried to make it home on the back of a horse and nothing else. This is the one the Ancients rejected from the pool. My mystery. My mortal. Show me the iron in your soul.
Show me why they took you.
“You admit you serve the warlock, then?” Ylena asked.
“First of all,” Lydia started angrily, “I’m not a goddamn tool. I’m at nobody’s disposal. Second, fuck you, buddy.” She stepped toward the massive man, her fear clearly gone in her anger. “Your idiot puddle-gods decided to do this, not me. I don’t have some secret superpower. I don’t know jack shit about what’s going on. But you know what? I don’t serve either of you, whether you’re kings or not. As far as I’m concerned, you’re both assholes, and I just want to go home!”
Her rant over, she realized what she had done. She winced, clearly thinking she was about to die, and looked up at the ceiling before shutting her eyes.
No, my dear. I am hardly angry. Anything but. He clapped his hands, leather glove against metal gauntlet. The muffled sound startled her.
“I concur with her statements, Edu,” Aon said and leaned on the back of the chair he had been standing beside hiding the proof of his pleasure with the girl and willing it to stand down. “She is but a mortal. No power dwells within her but clarity of observation granted by her lack of corruption. It is that trait that interests me. It is that power alone that I wish to wield. Her candor is refreshing, in a world where all others offer either fear or platitudes. I seek to give her shelter as my guest, as the gate to Earth has now closed.”
The girl cringed with the dashing of her last hopes. He found himself unable to look away from her, trying to commit every movement she made to his memory.
Aon ran the tips of his clawed gauntlet over the twisted wooden vines of the frame of the chair, wishing they were the tendons of her arms, the muscles in her neck. “Perhaps in the years to come, she will find a place here in this world. Perhaps she will come to think of it as home. Or, when Earth and Under realign, she may pass back into that world unhindered. Had I been awake when all this transpired,” he paused and lifted his head up to look at Edu, his voice growing low, sharp, and dangerous, “I would have brought her back to Earth immediately.”
Edu shifted, finally moving, and took two steps towards him, his fists clenched. “He warns you not to speak such blatant lies,” Ylena said.
Aon laughed darkly. “It is no longer your responsibility to judge me for my worth, Edu. You are the trespasser here. Tell me, what will you give me in exchange for your continued awakened state, without pitching our world back into war?”
Edu’s angry advance was cut short. He froze, although his shoulders were still hunched up toward his ears. Ylena’s voice was still as calm as it ever was. “He asks you to speak plainly, warlock.”
“Shall I use smaller words, then?” Aon taunted. Edu merely growled angrily again. “Very well. You are in the wrong, my old friend. The elders will judge you as such. They will be forced to stand with me in a war against you, one you will surely lose. I remind you, I could wipe you from the face of this world without ever missing a moment’s rest.” He paused as he recalled a deal he made with Edu so very long ago. A deal he would propose now. “What will you give me in exchange to allow you this incursion without consequence?”
Edu sighed heavily. “He will no longer actively seek the girl’s demise. He will allow her to remain here, in your…care.” It was clear Ylena was carefully censoring whatever was coming out of Edu’s mind. “If he can remain watchful.”
“Very well. We may say to the Elders that we wish to work together to solve this mystery. Let there be peace on our time!” He slapped his hand on the back of the chair again, comically accentuating his incredibly sarcastic statement before biting out his next words in an angry hiss. “Now get out of my house.”
Edu glanced to Lydia, the look lingering. Finally, just before Aon was about to teleport him out of the room, the King in Red turned and exited the room, Ylena close behind. The door swung shut, and with the click, Aon turned his head to look at Lydia. He moved to close the distance between them.
Lydia raised her hands as if to protect herself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Her eyes were wide, blue ringed in white in fear as she stiffened. She was apologizing for her angry rant that had included him in the blast radius.
Aon chuckled low in his throat, and he caught her quickly, hands at her elbows, pulling her in toward him. She squeaked and froze in terror. Oh, she was so warm. So wonderful. He wanted to press her body against his, trap her against the table, rip her clothes from her body, and burying himself into her heat.
One thing at a time.
“Be still, my sweet.” He raised his clawed hand in front of her face and tapped the end of his sharp pointer finger on her chin. “And you are lying. You are not sorry. You spoke those words in a moment of honesty.”
Lydia stammered and broke off as Aon moved his finger to place it across her lips, shushing her. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the metal of his claw. He could feel all that he touched. The prosthesis was inconvenient at more delicate times but provided him little more suffering than that.
“I am not angry. Your dubious choice of garish words was pointed betwixt us both. Your anger was rightful and served my needs quite nicely. I very much enjoyed watching you dress Edu down, even if perhaps I was included in your wrath.”
He couldn’t keep the purr out of his voice as he spoke, wanting to replace his finger with his lips. The odd urge—one that had never come to him before—struck him for a moment. He quickly changed his mind and wished her lips to be on some other part of his anatomy that was much louder in its neediness. How she trembled against him!
“You are mortal. I will not harm you in the waking world, my dear. It would be far more permanent than what I would spin for you in a nightmare. Ergo, it would be far less entertaining. I meant my words when I vowed to you that you are safe here.” Aon let his clawed finger trail slowly away from her lips, tracing up her jawline.
“And to address your earlier issuance?” Aon leaned toward her slightly, his voice lowering. She went pale, and he grinned behind his mask. “That I am a pervert? This, I cannot deny. But if you think the depth of my depraved mind is limited to watching you bathe…you are sincerely mistaken.”
Her face bloomed into a blush, pink touching her cheeks as she clearly understood the meaning in his words that he wrote so blatantly for her. He wanted her to throw her arms around him, or to beg him to take her. When she did neither, and merely stared at him stupefied, he shrugged.
He turned from her, pulled out a chair at the large table, and sat down in it in front of a stack of papers and notes. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had to hide his body’s reaction to her closeness. “Forgive me if the choice of clothes does not suit you. The servants scavenged what they could find. Fabian can fetch you anything you like from the city tomorrow. His tastes are far more modern than mine,” Aon said with a small chuckle at his own understatement. “Ah. Also, I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh?” Lydia asked warily. The look on her face said that she expected the proposition to be of a more…salacious nature.
The best way to keep this one from cowering away from him would be to keep her off her gait. He had to be unexpected, unpredictable, and interesting. He wanted her to follow him down the dark hallways of his world, to take his outstretched hand and let him pull her into the depths.
Such things were a careful dance. Ones ruined by a brash and violent slacking of desire against her flesh.
A negotiation was needed. A careful game. Two things that he excelled at.
Very well, Lydia. Let us play, shall we?
“I suggest we spend our evenings here. I, in my research, and you to assist me. In exchange, I will answer any questions as you may have, in as full detail as I may have it. I expect you are desperate for information.”
“What do you mean, assist you?”
“Nothing sordid or unpleasant. Putting away my books, helping me sort and locate items, things of that nature. Utterly mundane, I promise,” Aon said, deeply amused at the worry she carried that he meant for her to service him in other ways.
The thought had occurred to him.
The thought was still occurring to him.
“You aren’t going to torture me?”
“Not unless you wish me to.”
When she shot him a glare, he chuckled. She was beautiful when she was indignant.
Her response was one he hadn’t been certain she would give. “Sure.”
“Good! Then you are free to roam my home as you see fit. The gardens are yours as well, but go no further. It is for your own protection, I assure you. Many creatures in this world hunger for the taste of human meat, and to them, you are no more interesting than as a rare treat.”
He snapped his fingers again. Mortals! Yes. She was mortal. “Food. Right, yes. You are likely hungry, forgive me. I do not eat food with others, for obvious reasons.” He gestured at his mask. “The kitchens are downstairs. Someone can assist you whenever you are in need.”
He lifted his pen in his gloved hand and began to write. She didn’t take the sign that she was being dismissed. Perhaps in modern days, such etiquette was lost. There was no telling what had changed in the nearly eighty years he had been asleep. The girl lingered, watching him. He could return the favor without her notice, wearing a mask as he was.
Curiosity burned in her. She was lingering on the edge of wanting to run and wanting to stay. And he was trapped between the desire of wanting her to surrender to him now in this moment, and the part of him that begged her not to give up the game so quickly.
“You may stay here with me if you like,” he teased. “I would ask you not stare, though. It is a distraction.”
His voice shook her from her confusion, and she turned towards the door.
“Goodnight, Lydia,” Aon called from behind her.
Her hand lingered on the doorknob. “Can you stay out of my dreams tonight, please?”
Suppressing a laugh, he found himself more entertained with the girl than he could have ever imagined. What a clever, biting little thing. To make such a request of him, a monster and a fiend. She was politely asking to be allowed to sleep. Such a teasing favor should be returned with a teasing retort. “I will do my best to restrain myself, although I make no promises.”
He did not miss the smile on her face. It was beautiful. She silently chuckled, keeping the sound from being audible. He wished to hear the sound. He felt sorely lacking to have not heard it.
But she had smiled at his joke.
Something warmed him, something seemed to etch itself into his chest, on the bone of his ribs itself. He had not enough time to think it through, before she turned the knob and opened the door.
“Goodnight, Aon.”
